


i wish there was a faster way to heal

by hidefromeveryone



Series: animation fics [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:24:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16393697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidefromeveryone/pseuds/hidefromeveryone
Summary: After they get back from Mystacor, Bow realizes he needs to have a talk with Adora.He knew all too well what it felt like to realize that you'd been abused. Not in the moment, but long after the fact.





	i wish there was a faster way to heal

**Author's Note:**

> i finished season one just a little bit ago, and was inspired to write this after bow made a comment during the mystacor episode about how bad things must have been for adora in the fright zone. enjoy. written from personal experience.

"Adora? Are you in there?" 

Bow, having already knocked on her door a few times, was growing worried by the lack of response from within. It was only mid-day, and, although Adora was known to catch up on her lost sleep whenever she could, he had seen her only a few hours prior during brunch. 

It hadn't been long since they had returned from Mystacor, and all of them still felt a little shaken up from their experiences there. Glimmer still felt terrible for not believing Adora about Shadow Weaver's presence in the Sorcerers' land, having chalked up Adora's actions that day to nothing more than emotional distress. So did he, for that matter, but Bow was more anxious about the fact that Adora's recent knowledge of her past mistreatment was being met, for the most part, in a lackluster way by his new friend. That wasn't to say she wasn't reacting to it, but besides a few moments of revelation and fear during the past few weeks, Adora had seemed to mainly be okay recently. 

However, Bow knew all too well what it felt like to realize that you'd been abused. Not in the moment, but long after the fact. He knew that it was easier to push it down, deep inside yourself, once the knowledge came to light, and forget that the moment of clarity had ever come to you. It was easier to forgive and forget, move on from it all like it had never happened. 

But that wasn't how healing worked, and it would only make things worse the longer it went on. It was like continually ripping a scab off of a wound, allowing new infections to seep into it with every new minute that passed, and clawing at its rough edges until it far surpassed the size of the original injury. 

He wouldn't let Adora do this to herself for any longer, like he had not too long ago, shortly after his fathers had adopted him. He needed to talk to her. 

It was only mere seconds before Bow was going to knock on the door again, having waiting for a few moments after his question hung in the silent air, that he heard Adora's faint voice from the interior of her room. 

"You can come in Bow, I'm here."

Cracking open the door, Bow's eyes scanned the dimly lit room. The curtains were drawn, casting Adora in the shadows of the mid-afternoon sunlight. She was facing away from the door, arms wrapped tightly around her mid-section. A few pillows were strewn across the room, holes ripped in them and feathers scattered everywhere. Some blankets were twisted between Adora's legs, likely the product of an attempted nap gone wrong. 

Bow walked closer to her bed, pausing before coming to sit at the end of it. When Adora didn't respond to his movements, he cleared his throat before speaking once more. 

"How are you doing?"

Bow heard a slight scoff muffled in the pillow Adora had shoved her face into before she answered. 

"I'm doing just fine, Bow." A moment of pause occurred, before she ended her thought. "Thank you for asking."

"No, I mean, how are _you_ doing?" A deep sigh filled the space as Adora rolled over to face him, mumbling a soft apology as she kicked Bow's thigh in the process. 

"I'm just tired. Once I catch up on sleep, I'll be in tip top fighting shape in no time." Bow bit his lip. This might be a bit more difficult of a conversation to have than he expected. 

"I meant you, Adora. Not She-Ra, not Adora the Soldier, not Adora the Rebel Fighter." Adora sat up, leaning on her elbows. 

"I don't even know if that person exists, let alone who she is or how she would feel." Bow shifted slightly from where he was perched on the end of the bed, crossing his legs to fully face Adora. 

"That's okay. You don't have to know who she is quite yet. It's okay to feel uncertain about this. You've been through a lot recently, what with the whole finding-out-you've-been-manipulated-your-whole-life-into-serving-an-army-of-genocidal-evil-people thing." Adora cast a glance sideways, her eyes no longer meeting his. "But if the decision to throw away everything you've ever known to join a cause fighting against your past life only a few hours after you learned it was wrong goes to show anything, I bet she's a good person." 

A small smile tugged on Adora's lips before falling, her fingers fiddling with the cuffs of her jacket before she licked her lips anxiously. Bow waited, knowing she was probably nervous that whatever she would say next would offend him. 

"I appreciate that, Bow, I really do. But I guess I just - I don't really know that you can relate to how I'm feeling right now, after learning all that I have." She had moved closer to him, and they were sitting facing each other now on the bed, knees lightly knocking against each other's.

"I bet it feels like you've been living a lie all these years. That you're turning your back on the very people that raised you, and spreading false tales about the way they treated you now that it's being called abuse. That all of the manipulation, emotional games, physical violence, was never really bad enough to justify those labels. That if it really was so bad to do this much of a number on you, that you should have been able to realize what they were doing to you in the moment. That you must be lying about your past, the memories of things that happened. That your fear, the constant paranoia, the inability to lower your guard is a sign of you being weak." Adora's eyes had grown wider and wider the longer Bow had spoken, until they were the size of moonstones and her hand was covering her mouth in shock. 

"Bow, I don't - How did you know? I never -" He cast a sad smile her way, before turning his gaze sideways and looking out of a crack in the curtains at the low-hanging sun. 

"Before my dads adopted me, I was being raised to be the perfect little rebel soldier by my birth parents. It's not common for - for people to abuse their children in the Rebellion, but it can still happen from time to time. Especially when it's well-hidden. They used me as a scout, given that I was small and could fit into tiny places, and they practiced their skills with weaponry by using me as a dummy." Bow lifted the edge of one of his chest bandages, revealing a few scars that were white and raised against his skin. It was clear that more lay in the shadows, but he placed his wrappings back in order quickly. "If they missed, it was my fault. But the neglect, and the emotional abuse, was more prominent. I was taught that I had to earn every scrap of food or clothing given to me, and I slept on the floor unless I was allowed to have a bed roll for the night. It wasn't uncommon for them to treat me more like a soldier than a son, especially with their words." He glanced back at Adora, and saw a few tears rolling down her cheeks. He knew if he stopped speaking now, he wouldn't be able to finish what he needed to say. 

"It came to light when I was 12. After I had failed a mission to gain intel about the Whispering Woods and their shifting patterns, they had forced me to, well - practice my archery skills in a dangerous manner." Bow unbuckled his right gauntlet, revealing six long, deep scars along his forearm. They rested in valleys along his skin, indented and pink. He replaced the piece of armor as he continued on. "My birth mother had held my arm in place, ensuring that my form wasn't proper as my birth father marked my course in a way that would graze my arm before limply falling to the ground a few yards in front of me. My dads happened to show up to the training grounds after half a dozen arrows had already done their damage. A fight ensued, and I passed out to wake in their care, a report having gone out to the Queen about the events that had occurred. My birth parents were deemed unfit to live in this kingdom, and my dads were allowed to adopt me after a lengthy process of getting to know me." A smile twitched on Bow's lips. "It involved lots of cookies and movie nights." 

"Bow, I - I never would have guessed. I'm sorry that I assumed you, well - that you'd led a happy, normal life here. It's so nice in Bright Moon, and you're so positive, I never would have imagined you had been through something so terrible." She had reached out while speaking, her hand resting lightly on Bow's knee. Her thumb was running in light circles, trying to sooth him after watching a slight shake in his hands appear as he spoke. "How did you, well, learn to be as okay as you are after that? It seems that you felt everything that I'm currently living through, but came out on the other side. It feels like this nightmare is never going to be over, that I'm never going to feel at peace again." 

"Well, it wasn't easy. But the hardest part is already over. Because the realization that you've been abused, that your life wasn't normal when it was the only thing you've ever known, is one of the hardest reality shocks anyone can ever experience. It feels fake, like it's an elaborate lie made up by the world in an attempt to surprise you in the lamest possible way. The realization that you have years of continuous trauma lying on your back that you didn't know was happening until long after it was over is a lot to handle." Bow placed his hand on Adora's shoulder as he watched her sag in defeat at his words. He began to rub it in comforting circles before continuing on. "The most important thing that you can do right now is to not repress everything you've learned about your past, and the people that have hurt you. That's the first step towards healing that you can take right now. And it's okay to not be okay. You'll need to work through your memories, emotions, trauma. The abuse will pop up in strange ways, like it did in Mystacor. But that's not your fault. Not of this has ever been. I know that might be hard to believe, but it's true. The Horde only ever wanted to hurt and use you in order to reap their own personal gains before throwing your aside like garbage, and that is something you'll never be. You are worth so much more than they give you credit for." A light scoff exited Adora's lips before she met Bow's eyes. 

"She-Ra is, not me. I'm broken now." She bit her lip, nails digging into her palm. "I don't know how to heal from this, to move past what they did to me and made me believe. It feels like I'm always going to be jumping at shadows and the slightest noise, and blaming myself for everything that goes wrong."

"It's hard, and it will take a while, but the best way to heal from the past is to grow into your own self and erase the false person they wanted you to be from existence. That means accepting everything about yourself, good and bad, and allowing yourself to make mistakes and grow. You might stumble sometimes, recede back into old habits if you drop the ball or get too stressed." Bow unscheated his bow from his shoulder, tracing the patterns in the wood that he'd carved himself. "For me, that meant long talks with my dads whenever I had a panic attack after dropping a bowl of popcorn on movie nights and reclaiming the tools used to hurt me most in this world. After taking time to simply be a kid with my dads, albeit a few years late, I decided to use the skills my birth parents had used against me for good. Archery had always been my strong suit, and I made it my craft in the hopes that becoming a master archer would help me distance myself from the past. So far, it's worked. Being a force of good, positive change in the world helps me feel that none of this, let alone me, was a mistake." 

"But what if I'm only alive to exist as She-Ra, Bow? What if it turns out my whole life is meant to only fulfill that one purpose, and leaving behind the Horde is just abandoning one life for another that is still not really and truly mine?" Adora picked up the Sword of Protection from where it was resting near her headboard, uncertainty clouding her features. 

"If that was the case, then you wouldn't be the Adora that I've come to know and love these past few weeks. After all, She-Ra is a tool, not you. You are worth so much more than just what you can do and offer to people in terms of so-called 'usefulness,' Adora. You're a human being. You're allowed to just exist and feel your emotions, to stop and smell the flowers." A sob exited Adora's lips as Bow drew her into a hug. Her body became racked with tears as she let herself break down properly for the first time in years. 

"Bow, I'm just - I'm so scared that none of this will ever stop. I want to stop feeling so scared all the time, to stop losing sleep, to stop fearing everything that reminds me of the Horde. I'm scared that I'll always be defined by them." Adora clung more tightly to Bow, her fingers digging into his shoulders as her chest tightened. For the first time, Bow noticed light grey scars around her neck that seemed to be in the shape of smoke and shadows. 

"The fear never really goes away, but it stops controlling you. Sooner than you ever think it will. It seems insurmountable, but one day you'll wake up and realize your first thought is what you want for breakfast and not if _they're_ coming down the hall." Bow rubbed Adora's back gently in small circles, his eyes noticing the same, smoky faint scars on Adora's ears and eyes. "And you've never been defined by them. From the moment you were born, you've only ever been you. You deserve to be able to explore that. If anyone ever tries to stop you from doing so, don't let them. It's not worth it to leave yourself behind to please others."

"Bow?" Adora only spoke his name after several long minutes had passed, her sobs and his heightened breathing the only sounds filling the space. "Thank you, for checking on me. I needed this, and I didn't even realize it was a void in my life until it was filled." 

"It's no problem, I only did what any friend would do." At some point, they had fallen sideways back onto the bed, and were laying on their sides, arms tangled together. "I've been worried. I know what it feels like to discover your perception of life was a lie." 

"Bow?" 

"Yeah?"

"I don't think I'm okay."

"That's okay."

"Will I ever be?" 

"I don't know. Mostly, yes."

"How will I know?"

"When you're watching the sun set, and thinking about some inane facet of life instead of how tired you are and how much you wish the world would stop existing."

"Okay."

"Adora?"

"Yes?"

"Come to me if you need anything. You can talk to me about anything, even if it seems too violent, or brutal, or devastating to force another to bear." 

"Okay."

"You're going to be okay."

"Are you?"

"In the ways that it matters."

"I was there was a faster way to heal than this. It's not fair that I escaped the Horde, but they still have their claws dug deeply into me."

"Don't worry about the time it takes. Worry about you. Worry about anything other than the wounds. I swear, the more attention they get, the larger they grow."

"Okay."

"You're an amazing friend, Adora. Don't think otherwise. If you need me, I'll be there. I know you'd do the same for me."

"Thank you, Bow. For everything today."

Although nothing more happened that afternoon, other than an impromptu post heart-to-heart exhaustion nap in Adora's room, Adora came by Bow's room that night asking if he had a spare moment. She wanted to talk about something Shadow Weaver had done to her, several years prior. Bow let her into his room, closing the door and offering her pillows and blankets until she was settled in the corner of his bed and began talking. 

It became commonplace for the two of them to travel between their rooms several times a week, seeking comfort and release through a strange combination of friendship and shared trauma. No one questioned why Adora began smiling more often, or hiding less behind She-Ra in public situations. After all, it wasn't like things changed overnight. There were still She-Ra sword mishaps with ancient heirlooms when the occasional shadow brushed too close to her for comfort, and Adora's sleeping schedule didn't grow much better. 

Bow knew that the first step to being okay was admitting that you weren't. And now Adora knew that too. Sometimes, all it takes is a simple conversation between friends in order to admit that after living a lie that had tried to insist otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @hidefromeveryone
> 
> this is the first thing i've finished in months. i'm sorry i'm not back to my usual quality of writing yet.


End file.
